The world of steroids have been a part of videos games in some shape, way or form for many years now. This piece will be taking a look at a series of sports video games known as Blitz: The League, which caused a lot of controversy amongst their release because it allowed you to use steroids in the game on your football players. Keep in mind before we continue on here, these players had the physique of a bodybuilding star, even the kickers, so the game is not the most realistic depiction of the sport to ever be played on a video game console. Blitz: The League was first released in 2005 on the Sony Playstation 2, Sony Playstation Portable and the Microsoft X-Box, it was an off shoot of the widely popular NFL Blitz arcade games.

The game would actually feature several former National Football League players as different characters in the game. The most notable of the bucnh would be NFL Hall Of Famer and NFL Super Bowl Champion Lawrence Taylor, who portrayed the character known as Quentin Sands. So, where is the steroid connection to this video game series is something you may be wondering, well it appears when a player gets injured. Assuming you are playing the game and the player you are controlling gets injured, the game will allow you an option to shoot up with steroids on the sidelines and your player will instantly be healed, he will also be able to instantly return to the game and play. This caused a huge amount of controversy in the sports world, because not only had the video game mocked the NFL about their rumored steroid use, but it glorified it as well.

The game, whether intentionally or not, essentially suggested that if you wanted to ever heal from any injury on the field, just shoot up with steroids and everything will be fine. However, the game did do something that made the player potentially pay for taking the stuff and that was that if a player eventually suffered a major injury, no amount of steroids can save them form the injury. The game would also feature a story mode, which means that you will be taken through the lives of the players in the fictional league as well. That means that you would interact with other players and personalities whether you were on the field or not. That is where our friendly steroid user would make his return because you would be given the option to shoot up off the field as well.

In an interesting side note to this whole ordeal, the people behind the controversial ESPN program Playmakers, which depicted steroid use in a fictional football league, where the folks who wrote the story lines for the game. ESPN was so angered by the TV show that they threatened to pull all NFL coverage from ESPN and ESPN would cave in to cancel the show after the first season. Back to the video game realm for a moment, Blitz: The League II would be released a few years later and while the game still featured plenty of outrageous moments, the steroid usage would be turned down slightly. Steroids are not just something exclusive to the proverbial real life, they are in video games as well and this will not be the last time we here about them either.